A glass of steaming milky syrupy tea is best served cut. One by two or two by three, it embodies the spirit of sharing and camaraderie (and more significantly a resource crunch). Come, have a sip.
Anurag Kahsyap is unlike most directors (eleboration not necessary) and it seems that movie pirates have a liking for the maverick moviemaker. And they have good reason to.
About a year ago on Zoom channel's show Director's Cut Anurag revealed to Kabir Bedi, the host, "I like piracy," and went on to stress that "I'm here because of piracy."
Anurag's reason was that if it hadn't been for piracy, a small-town guy like him wouldn't have been exposed to the best of world cinema.
With Dev D releasing the week before last, the much maligned pirates seemed to have returned Anurag the favour. Unlike most movies (some bootleg versions get leaked even before the actual release) Dev D's pirated print took a long while to hit the markets (atleast that is what my research says). The first prints were available on the torrent networks a good week after the film's release. This is important because movies tend to make a bulk of their collections in the first week itself.
Moreover, the prints that are circulating on the online torrent and video sharing websites are sloppy cam-rips. It isn't even worth the effort to download them. Intentional? I wonder.
The Sundayfollowing Dev D's release I was taking a stroll at Delhi's Daryaganj (looking for old magazines and stuff). Though on that Sunday, there wasn't any Sunday Market, but the pirated DVD sellers were omnipresent.
"Dev D hain kya? (Do you have Dev D?" I enquire.
"Haan! Haan! Bahut hain (Yes! Yes! There are lots)," comes the pat reply.
"Dikhao (Show me)"
"Khud hi dekhlo. Bahut DVD hain (See for yourself, there are lots of DVDs)"
"DVD, par Dev D ki DVD (DVD, but Dev D's)."
"Woh kya hain? (What's that?)"
"Nayi film hain. Parson hi release hui hain (New movie. Released the day before yesterday)."
"Hero kaun hain? (Who's the hero?)"
"Abhay Deol"
He gives me a confused look
"Sunny aur Bobby Deol ka bhai (A brother of Sunny and Bobby Deol)"
He shuffles through the DVDs and hands me one.
The title reads "Victory".
Defeated, I gave up.
PS: Anurag's Black Friday is still hot on the torrent network.
Four days - that must be the maximum in years that I've been away from the internet (well, not actually... I did check a few sites in between on my cell phone... but that doesn't exactly count. Does it?).
I would have liked to keep the judai (separation) for a while longer, but my boss didn't let it be. Had to log on to send some 'important' emails. And when you are online you just cannnot resist the temptation to check the updates on GMail, Blogger, Twitter, feed reader, LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut and so many more. I couldn't resist posting a post.
The reason is that I'm away on a vacation, a few marriages to attend and a little booze to drink.
Tomorrow I'll be leaving for Silchar in South Assam for four more days - so more four days away from the net (I'll be Twittering though). I'm not getting any withdrawal symptoms. Yet.
By the way, the smoking ban doesn't seem to have any effect on the bars in Shillong. Actually the waiter was surprised that we asked him the question.
And kids here too are playing terrorist-NSG games. Disturbing.
Planning to go to an interesting museum today. Will post if I find anything interesting.
Was watching last week's release A Wednesday this morning. Though I didn't find the movie as great as people claimed it to be, but on hearing the news of the serial blasts in Delhi today, I started thinking again. How are we - the common people - supposed to react to such acts?
In the movie Naseeruddin Shah plays the role of a common man who uses his own methods to deal with the perpetrators of such acts of terrorism.
A few weeks ago, I watched Mumbai Meri Jaan, that also revolves around the lives of people who were touched directly or indirectly by the serial blasts on Mumbai trains on July 11, 2006.
Films may be fiction, but they draw a lot from what is happening around us. Our desires and our fears and how we react to such situations.
Now I'm trying to draw some parallels between the characters and me, but am unable to find a match.
I know that I cannot be staying indoors because of the blasts, I have to go out and do the things that I need to. There might be more, it has become a way of life. And it doesn't seem that we have been able to do much about it.
What is worrying me now is that I don't understand the emotions that I'm feeling while watching the visuals on live television and reporters and anchors repeating the same thing over and over again.
Perhaps I've become comfortably numb. And that's a dangerous thing.
Occasionally, when I'm alone (a rarity in this e-era) a thought comes to me. But I was unable to elucidate it in sentences. Now, Atul in one of his sixteen blogs, coincidentally, expresses those feelings in a manner (as usual) that I wouldn't have managed to.
Now try to redo this 1986 Bappi Lahiri number from the film Main Balwan, starring (who else but) Mithun Chakraborty, in today's scenario. I couldn't. Felt paused. The other day, I went to a friend's engagement and wore a pair of trousers that my brother gifted me a decade back, and I didn't feel out of place.
I am not aware of any new dance form which has swayed our youth en masse since the days of Break Dance. There hasn't been any great musical revolution in between. Even the clothes that I wear (talking about us men) haven't changed much. My niece doesn't smile seeing the clothes that I wore in college, but she does giggle noticing what my elder brother wore as a child in black and white photographs.
Somewhere in 1990s, some things seem to have come to a standstill, whereas in others we are moving so fast that the past looks so sluggish. Internet and mobile have changed the way we live, communicate and earn a livelihood.
Every decade since World War II can be identified by cultural phenomenon (in music, dress and dance) which shaped the lives then, but that doesn't hold true for the last decade and a half. Perhaps there have been too many changes taking place simultaneously; and one couldn't have been all encompassing.
In India the only difference might have been in our movies. It took a maverick called Ram Gopal Varma to make Satya, a watershed in Hindi cinema, which was down in the dumps with mush, rehash, formula and syncronised PT dances, to infuse some life into that medium of expression. In music, we have AR Rehman and his dubbed Roja that had us all mesmerised with the new sound.
I do not follow trends, because there isn't anything worthwhile to follow. There was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but then he died early, though his music still lives, in my digital audio player. There were some sparks of brilliance, almost at the same time: Junoon from across the border with Azadi, Silk Route's Boondien and Luck Ali with Sunoh. But none could rekindle the magic again. Lucky Ali sounded so monotonous thereafter.
Technorati currently tracks 97.2 million blogs. That's about one blog for every 68 people on this planet (67.924 to be precise - if the population of the world as per July 2007 estimates is 6,602,224,175). Then blogs must be really popular. But these figures show another angle to the blog story, there might just be more blog creators than there are regular blog readers.
Whatever the facts might be, the potential of the blog as a mode to further commercial interests has not escaped most aware entrepreneurs. Many bloggers have been lured (including me) to the world of contextual pay-per-click advertising and the more popular ones carry advertising of the non-contextual variety as well.
There's no harm in making money, after all we all need a good life to live and that often costs some dough. With monetary benefits attached to a task the performance usually turns to be better (the Indian cricket team might be treated as an exception to the rule). But sponsored posts are different. Here you get paid to write about something in your blog (in a manner controlled by your paymaster). It might seem fine from a different point of view. But when I get offers for sponsored blogging, my mind wanders to the purpose behind my blogging. Name, fame and money - the eternal wants of the insatiable humankind. This blog might have increased the number of people who know me (or my name) by a few hundred (at the best). So name and fame via blogging doesn't do much (for the kinds of my kind). Money, though I wish my take-home salary would be atleast treble of what lands in my bank account at the end of every month, I don't care too much for money (coz money didn't buy me love).
But again, money does matter. So would I compromise my sole reason for blogging - satisfaction - for a few dollars (they talk in dollars not rupees)? I thought of emulating the advertorial model, wherein the readers know which is what. But the wannabe paymasters would beg to differ - the content should look authentic. You should pretend to suck up to people (and products) as though the suction is emanating from core of your heart. Many mainstream media organisations might do that, but I being the Managing Editor of this one-man venture can afford to put my foot down. Google takes care of my costs and I try to pay them back by the revenue shared via Adsense (a pittance though). In the meanwhile I can derive some satisfaction (From what? That I'm yet to figure out).
Some wannabe bloggerminators like to accuse bloggers as the type who are frantically making efforts through their blogs to catch the eye of some deep pocketed publisher, who would then hand them a hefty advance for their blook. My 'dreams of a publisher taking notice of me' was fulfilled when a Calcutta-based publishing concern sent me an email with the subject "Publication proposal." I didn't reply to that mail as I didn't have any publication-worthy stuff on me. I wish I had, I might just have been the next Zoe Margolis.
Fantasies apart, blogging with money on mind is not much fun. Blogging for me is unbridled - I wish to let it remain that way as long as possible. Whenever I get offers for sponsored posts (some from people mailing from GMail ids. They want to play safe, it seems - with the things that bloggers post about anyone and anything), I give them a counter offer. That they let me know of topics and ideas that would interest me and I would post about them for free. But it seems that they don't like their work done for free. Strange, isn't it?
If someone asks me the question, why do I blog? Atul framed the question in a different way. My answer would be a one liner (the best answers are) - accha lagta hain, it feels good. This 'feel good factor' is unlike the ad agency fabricated campaign generalising the feel of five percent of the nation for the entire populace.
This blog thing has been around for quite some time and I was a late starter (May 2005). Had earlier experimented with personal webpages, but found the experience quite unsatisfactory. One they were quite cumbersome to build and the free hosts never supported the features that I wanted to incorporate. Then I discovered blogging and felt that this was my kind of thing.
I read a lot of magazines, rather purchase a lot. Every morning the newspaper boy shoves in a sizeable bundle through the gap in my door. On reaching work there's another pile waiting on my desk. But I never wrote a single letter to the editor. Well, there was one, again that was just a cross posting of a blog post exemplifying my stand on what the editor of the magazine had written about on an issue that was (and is) a boiling one. The thing that I liked about blogging was that it is an impersonal sharing of thoughts extendable by personal threads. I was never the chatroom types, even social networking couldn't (yet) suck me in. I liked the evening addas over cups of tea, samosas and sweets (many people find it amusing that Bengalis relish sweets with tea). The blog isn't exactly an adda, chatrooms are thought to be closer. For me the blog is my adda (somewhat reflected by its title). The people I talk to, know me (through what I write or shoot) and the ones I speak too seem familiar, just like college buddies of different sensibilities, ideologies and abilities. The blog gave me to space to speak out and the time to listen.
When I began, I was choked. The flow started coming much later and am still waiting for the full spout. There are still a few hiccups, but that is reminiscent of what we were told as kids - a hiccup is indicative of someone thinking of you. Have written a lot on this blog (this is the 374th post) and the topics fill up my category/label list. Some posts are a big hit, while most stay ignored. Some get me feedback, others leave the reader speechless (uninterested might be more appropriate). That only encourages. Blogging for me is first about what I have to say and then about what others listen.
Friends, initially, couldn't be more discouraging. What's there in the blog? They asked. Later a few started their own, only to give up midway. Today, they provide me with the ideas to blog about. "You should write something about this," they say. "It's only a little blog," I retort. "It's at least something," they reason. Some even ask me to start a guest column and like a snobbish editor, "I'll think about that," I reply.
Sometimes I get the feeling akin to the frog in the well. The blog is my well, but then it has a lot of windows. The blog is my well with windows. I can open or close them whenever I feel like. Sometimes a stale wind might force them open or bang them close. But that cannot make me leave my well. For that I have a full-time job which also pays for the activities in the well.
I don't get paid in dollars to do this (yes, I have Adsense, but do you think that I'll ever make money out of that?). I get paid in satisfaction, that I have done something, however worthless it might seem to someone else. I talk of war and peace, I rave and others rant about the clothes I wear. I justify the things that I (and my kind) do. I let my opinion known. I fulfill unrealised desires. I do a lot more. I blog.
[This is a part of an unstructured tag/meme. If you want to be a part of this, please feel to shed some light on your blogexperience. Details are available here.]
The tricolour has unfurled for the sixtieth August 15 on the Red Fort. I am getting SMSs of all types, some congratulating me as a fellow Indian on this occasion, others threatening our real and perceived enemies against even fantasising about causing any harm to our nation. The messages of the later type are the more circulated. It's been the same for many years and don't know for how many more. Last year I asked myself the meaning of the freedom that I have and also attempted to draw similarities between the kites that dot the independent sky every Independence Day and the freedoms that we enjoy.
Yesterday as I was returning from work, it took me longer, much longer, to reach home. Almost every vehicle was being frisked. This morning I went to receive a friend at the railway station, there was khaki all around. Last year, men in uniform watching over me made me uncomfortable. This year, I'm more accommodating, their presence make me more secure, though I am very aware that something happens when you least expect it. In between the last and this Independence Day, a lot happened - Delhi, Varanasi and Bombay/Mumbai (Srinagar no longer makes the first headline).
I switched on the television, and saw the Prime Minister giving his ritual speech on the occasion. Over the years, the speeches have become so ritual. I switched off the TV. Unemotive reading of prepared text is not what I expect. I am not good at kite flying, so am not at the rooftop. There are too many security restrictions around, therefore I'm at home. My internet connection is working, therefore I'm blogging. I live in a free country, therefore I'm smiling.
I-Day Special Listen / download mp3 audio featuring excerpts from Jawaharlal Nehru's famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech. Click on the link below: [MP3 217 KB 00:00:27 64kbps Mono 22 kHz]
Was reading about the French statistician and economist Georges Anderla. His calculations showed that if the level of human knowledge in the year 1 AD was taken as a unit, it first doubled in a millennium and a half by 1500 and accelerated to multiply by two in 1700 and then again in 1900. At the time of his calculations (1973) human knowledge doubled every six years. According to science philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, (whose early books include, Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words, Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits, The Sex Magicians, and The Book of the Breast) present day knowledge doubles every 18 months.
Now I understand how the kids of today are so smart and they start doing things in school, which many in the older generations couldn't manage to get their partners do even after years in wedlock.
The once-a-river-now-a-drain which divides east Delhi from the rest of it, mythologically has a brother. The sister now maybe an embodiment of death and decay, but Hindus regard the brother - Yama - as the harbinger of the final farewell. Astride a buffalo, a mace in one hand and a rope in the other - he rules over the afterworld and strikes terror in the hearts of mortals. A vision not meant to entertain. But it does.
Of the 330 million gods and goddesses, it is he - the death god - who features in more non-mythological films and television serials. In his CRT, LCD or silver screen avatar Yama's arrival doesn't signify the end - it lightens the mood. Death is the comedian here.
Death is not funny, but black comedy makes us laugh. We know not what lies beyond, we only assume according to our beliefs. Some glorify death - the glorification is a necessity. Governments do it, militant groups do it. But while we are still breathing, why should we let something with a certain conclusion but uncertain timing come in the way?
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
December 31, the last puff, the last sip, the one that you don't want to miss. The one everyone wants. Like chain smokers filling up that umpteenth glass this end is a new beginning, of yet another round. To the forthcoming and many more, cheers!
The following comment was posted by aquamarine on November 17:
hi Soumya,
i'm just curious. DO u really sport a stern face like the one on ur display??????? ;)
AquaM
I didn't respond to it. The question had more than many grains of truth in there. The first impression that I leave on most people is of a grumpy snob. Atleast that is what they tell me once they know me better. I don't exactly know how true their initial observations were. But I definitely do look grumpy in many photographs. Including the one which had for long adorned my blogger profile (though digitally altered).
I don't want the same to happen with my blog. My posts may most often be unimpressionable, but pictures they say speak a thousand words. Therefore I took some extra pains in choosing a livelier photograph (any other photo would be livelier). But none were lively (and unrecognisable) enough.
Next I attempted to caricature myself. But a friend felt that it didn't resemble me enough - and suggested that I use one of the characters that I had developed during my school-time cartooning mania. She believed that I have a striking resemblance with him. She might just be right. Hence the new profile photo.
I was also contemplating anonymity - under the nom de guerre - 'AlbinoBee.' But on the realisation of the fact that almost no one is even aware of my present existence (I'm anonymous in my own identity) and nor would anyone remotely come across the idea of sending a Rs. 20 crore legal notice. I have also added my email id (at the bottom of the page) just in case someone just wants to. This can alternatively be used to send love notes and hate mail which cannot otherwise be shared over blog comments.
I was waiting for the hullabaloo over the latest in the Potter series to wither a little before I started writing this. I feared that my voice would be lost in all the cacophony. So now when relative calm prevails I begin...
Who is Harry Potter? I've heard of him, but I don't know him. Six bestsellers (this is an understatement), and I haven't read a word from any of them. Does this mean that I will be lynched by millions (there might be more) of Potter maniacs for my ignorance? I might reason with the mob that I've crossed the compulsory Potter reading age (what is it by the way?), but the little girl with blonde streaks partly hidden beneath a witch's hat, pointing her broom at me will shriek, "My Grandma's 90, and she's potty over Potter!!" "With a grand daughter like you, do you think she has any other option?" my quivering mind ponders. Lesson of Life: When a mob attacks, reasoning doesn't work, running for your life does. And will I discover that those costly sport shoes (costly only because of advertising expenses and dealer margins) out pace the witches' brooms (something must be wrong with the ignition there, they won't simply budge off the ground). And I will live another day to write this post.
In spite of my imaginary brush with the wannabe wizards and witches, I'm grateful to Joanne Kathleen Rowling that in this era of cable TV and video games, the kids (and many grownups too) haven't forgotten the dying habit of book reading.
When I was a kid (and that's not too long ago) we didn't have the electronic media to hype up things for us and influence our tastes and preferences. Therefore we often didn't know what's 'happening'. Apart from sports (the ones played out in the sun and not on electronic gizmos) and a little television (only one channel for a few hours a day) we had to be content with books and comics.
Books ignited our imaginations. Comics gave shape and colour to them. Folklores, fairy tales, Stories from the Arabian Nights, Panchatantra, Jataka Tales... I read them all. Enid Blyton provoked my fantasy flights; I looked for life in my toys. Hardy Boys, a little of Nancy Drew, Secret Seven, Famous Five led to many misadventures.
Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Ruskin Bond et al. tickled my literary aspirations. With Jules Verne and HG Wells for company I went twenty thousand leagues under the sea in my endeavour to go around the world in eighty days, so that I could be back in time for my next journey to the centre of the earth in order to escape the war of the worlds.
I too wore my underpants over my trousers, used a towel for a cape and tried to fly. Always wished if Shillong (my home town) would be a little more like Riverdale and Xanadu or at least the Skull Cave my home. Always wanted to drink the magic potion and beat the shit out of the Pakistanis (it was ingrained in our psyche that all Pakistanis were India's enemies, but time and understanding has thankfully healed those misapprehensions)
Rowling missed me by a few years, because by the time the first of her legendary series hit the stands, I was already in college and had started preferring books without pictures (but I still go loony over toons) and other adult literature (yes, that includes porn too). And today, when I see all the ballyhoo surrounding Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I'm for a moment tempted. But the overnight queues outside bookstores and the uninviting price tag of Rs. 895 (India's per capita income is Rs. 20,989) made me deduce this: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince = 22.375 bottles of beer.
Things change and so do people. There is nothing consistent. But isn't this change more visible when you are stationary and the world moves past you. But if we keep pace with our dynamic environs, everything would seem constant, something like two vehicles whizzing along a highway at the same speed.
Anurag Kahsyap is unlike most directors (eleboration not necessary) and it seems that movie pirates have a liking for the maverick moviemaker. And they have good reason to. 
